Once you catch the sharp scent of chlorophyll on the breeze, warmer days aren’t far behind. We think that’s a reason to celebrate—and celebrate we shall, with a brand new playlist! From moment the dew begins to dry on the grass in the morning, till it settles once again in the evening, we’ve got you covered with hours of songs inspired by golf & greens. We hope you enjoy the eclectic mix of tunes from musicians such as: Tom Waits, Yo-Yo Ma, and Mark Ronson (and many, many more!).
It’s clear. Tweetspeak has gone green.
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a recent poem from Donna we enjoyed:
Best thing about clothes
dried in summertime’s breath
is they way that you smell
wearing them.
POETRY PROMPT: Drift back and think about the scent of freshly cut grass. Let the scent-memory swift you away to a happy moment from your past. Write a poem about the look, the smell, and feel of the green grass.
Photo by Ashley Rose. Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Heather Eure.
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Sometimes we feature your poems in Every Day Poems, with your permission of course. Thanks for writing with us!
Browse more Poetry Prompts
Browse more Poetry Teaching Resources
- Poetry Prompt: Misunderstood Lion - March 19, 2018
- Animate: Lions & Lambs Poetry Prompt - March 12, 2018
- Poetry Prompt: Behind the Velvet Rope - February 26, 2018
Richard Maxson says
Leaving Carolina
Birds like black smoke rise
from Autumn’s fire. Cool nights
push fescue from its roots,
and wiregrass hunkers down
under the brown and amber past.
Now I must leave.
The Jonquils here are sleeping fast,
yet gold lies all around,
to be, rather than to seem,
a sign that first green too may last.
My boot print leaves no trace
in your mountain streams. Look
there in a trout’s face for me,
or on a patch of tended ground
where rue grows with the columbine.
What led me here I cannot say
for sure, nor say what kept me here
was ever meant to be,
but I know my heart was blue
long before I saw your skies.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Oh how I like this Richard.
Born in NC living in SC, you’ve captured my home well with words.
The last 2 lines are perfection.
michelle ortega says
“My boot print leaves no trace in your mountain streams”
A nod to our insignificance in comparison to the magesty of nature, but that we leave our traces in the life around us. Beautiful.
Donna Z Falcone says
🙂 Thank you for featuring my little poem.
michelle ortega says
I took a deep breath and received the refreshing of your words!
Monica Sharman says
I combined this prompt with the jeans prompt. 🙂
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2015/04/01/national-poetry-month-show-us-your-poetry-jeans/#comment-264140
michelle ortega says
What wisdom, Monica! “Wear the jeans that fit.”
Love.
Richard Maxson says
Wise and fun! I haven’t rolled down a hill lately. Here in the Ozarks they are pretty rocky, probably end up in the walk-in clinic. I will roll vicariously and safer down the hill of your poem.
Olga Salimova says
This poem visited me and left in good spirit. Thank you!
L. L. Barkat says
These are more generally for the theme of Golf & Greens 🙂
“Game”
I never learned the words
nor the swing,
small distances
were bigger
than they seemed.
***
“Spring Gardening”
What’s this?
English ivy made its way
all winter, under white.
Secrets I will now
clip.
***
Winter eroded
all the green, or so I thought.
Taking my shovel to the concrete walk
I scraped moss.
***
Mild shoots of wild
onion, rise.
Teach me your strength.
The earth a rock
I could not shovel
through.
Richard Maxson says
I love how these hang together, the first with the subsequent three: perception, expectation, endurance and strength.
michelle ortega says
What a surprise to find all the growth beneath the snow! Just when we think all is quiet, nature has a mind of her own.
Prasanta says
Waiting
White bell-shaped blooms bend slightly
Paying homage to depths beneath
Crisp grass forged upward
Through a deep darkness
By a cataclysmic split
Of a tiny seed
The ground brims
With tiny creatures wiggling
rummaging about the vastness
of open space, displaced momentarily
by bursting stalks
The ground beneath burgeoning,
Hopeful seeds trembling,
splitting sides,
seeping upward,
awaiting their glorious day–
and did you catch it, before it died?
Before it was chipped away,
Before it faded?
And life is like this,
This wait, this wait of spring
This waiting for bloom
This glancing at the cusp
Of something glorious
This waiting of–
All around me, the ground is plucked
And picked and upturned and raked
Struggling to shake off
the shreds of winter
And I have been waiting that long
For the land of dripping green.
michelle ortega says
Prasanta, you have recorded such beauty in the waiting! I find myself this year so impatient for the blooms.
Richard Maxson says
Poems like this are as welcome as daffodils.
You paint with your words, Prasanta.
Olga Salimova says
Oh, it is a very alive poem: dirt is a microcosm with its own cycles and our universe is right by its side, or rather connects, and so much depends on what’s in the ground. I like it a lot.
Prasanta says
Michelle, I too am impatient for Spring and warmth and sunnier days. It’s coming; soon, very soon!
Richard, thank you, that added a bloom of sunshine to my day!
Olga, I appreciate your words about interconnectedness. And the ending of your piece below with “lemon sorbet” is just delicious. 🙂
michelle ortega says
Here is my poem, just under the wire. 3 am is usually my favorite time to sleep, but since I was awake… 🙂
Too young to sport the electric mower
I cut the grass on my own power
With the whirring of the blade
A reel mower, a REAL mower made
Blades were sharpened by my dad
A set of clippers also had
Equipped me with the cut I needed
Though a linear path could not be heeded
For the yard was not an angle
That helped avoid a weekly wrangle
But instead a hill and bumps
Made by prehistoric rocks
Drag the mower up some stairs
Over the roots, move the chairs
And rush the hill, blades behind
And then begin a path to find
The first pass done, then up again,
Redirect and let her spin
Avoid the flowers and the garden
Or hell’s to pay from the Warden
When at last the job is done
I sit down and receive the sun
Sip iced tea and go inside
Smiling with a quiet pride.
Richard Maxson says
Happy 3 am, Michelle! I fear I will spread my insomnia among the members of Charity and Ann’s writing course.
Wonderful natural rhymes in this. I like that it is about an old reel mower (they are the best for the grass). There is something to love about the two lines ending in “bumps” and “rocks” in the center. They are a sort of implied rhyme. There may be a real poetic device at work here that I am unfamiliar with, but I thought it was very cool to pair these.
michelle ortega says
I was wondering if you were awake. 🙂
Glad you enjoyed this! I don’t typically write poems in rhymes, and I don’t think I even realized those words don’t exactly rhyme. The 3 am thing.
But this was an effort of writing as I was awakening which worked itself out!
Richard Maxson says
Sifting
I sift the soil between my hands,
then part the earth and plant a seed.
How marvelous these mounds and bands
will bring us everything we need.
The rains are late, and as I weed,
I sift the soil between my hands
and pack it down, and maybe feed
the wintered ground with mulch and sand.
Then comes the rain and soaks the land.
By May the tender sprouts are freed,
I sift the soil between my hands,
and help direct them where they lead.
Days grow short, the rows are screed.
The berries jellied, beans are canned.
Winter snows that Spring succeed.
I sift the soil between my hands.
Olga Salimova says
We saw winter freezing into solid crystals and columns.
Fine needles and plates on windows multiplying and coming together gradually to form a crust.
We usually loose a lot of skin and the residual wear and tear is engraved into the ragged landscape of our bodies and eyes.
And we dream of being sun-weathered and soaked in juices of freshly cut grass or… give us another palate cleanser.
Like lemon sorbet.